Primal Journal (thetodclark)

A little background:
I'm in my 3rd week of transitioning to Primal, and before all this I was a conventional health nut. My husband and many of his friends work out constantly and being male, get completely ripped, while I was doing similar workouts with minimal results. I've never been "overweight," but if I stopped working out for a week, the pounds would pile on really easily.

I worked out 4-5 days a week, running, HIIT, lifting, ate what is considered a perfect diet by conventional wisdom, yet no matter what I looked like I had too much fat on my body. I would get so mad if I ate anything that deviated from the food pyramid and feel extremely guilty. But I didn't look like I worked out, or even cared what I ate.

I spent endless hours researching nutrition, workouts, etc. thinking there must be something I was missing. I didn't understand how even if I tracked my calories and workouts perfectly, I would still gain weight or stay the same weight at best. And thank goodness I never gave up because almost by chance I found this website. It was like a lightbulb went on! EVERYTHING makes sense where nothing made sense before!

Now I feel like I'm working with my body instead of against it. When I eat, I don't feel like I have a "food baby," and I sleep better than ever. I've lost that annoying 5-6 lbs in 2 weeks, the ones that just clung to me endlessly for YEARS. But I digress. This is a daily journal, I just feel happy today about all of these positive changes.

I ate a lot of veggies at lunch so I was kind of turned off to them for dinner. I was also a little nauseous when I got home so my dinner was pretty light. I still feel hungry, but don't feel like eating. Nausea has been my only battle so far, and I'm hoping it goes away.

The hardest challenge yet

My friends, being the health and fitness "gurus" they are, started a website where one of them, who is in medical school, posts articles about nutrition suggesting that saturated fats be replaced with CANOLA OIL!

I shouldn't be shocked, but the worst part is, at the bottom of the article it says something like, "Some research not sited because it's common biochemistry knowledge."

THAT IS NOT SUFFICIENT. I'm frustrated because I want to be supportive of my friends, but I can't support this website. Advice from anyone who might read this?

UPDATE: I'm not sure if the wine is causing it, but I was sort of hungry before I started drinking it and now I feel extremely nauseous. The nausea has occurred once before with the wine, but I took that as a sign not to drink wine after chugging espresso. :/ But, not every time I drink wine do I get nauseous. Looking back on what I ate for the day, it seems very low in carbs. Perhaps it's ketosis that's causing the nausea.

The husband is making frozen pizza and I'm preemptively noting that I will probably indulge in some to get something in my stomach that instinctively seems like it will make me feel better.

If it wasn't for the nausea, today would have been an ideal day. Mood-wise, meal-wise, energy-wise, sleep-wise... bummer that it got ruined at the end.

Please if you've also experienced nausea, share your story with me? I know it's "common" when switching to primal, for many possible reasons, but what made it better?

I think I may have found something to help with the nausea: Kefir. Trying that out, because the nausea keeps coming and going and I feel like maybe it should have subsided by now. I've also noticed that alcohol makes it much worse, so sadly, I may need to cut that out for awhile.

This weekend I brought along my bottle of red wine for a camping trip, but got sucked in by the non-primal girly drinks my friends had. Felt TERRIBLE. I laid in my tent literally shaking - my muscles convulsed like I was cold or something but I definitely was not. I also got sucked in by the convenience of a bun for my chicken sausage. I don't know what caused it, but I hope I NEVER feel that awful again. It felt like the worst flu I've ever had... for 7 or 8 hours.

B: Almond meal pancake and Kefir (the last of the pancake batch, just in time because I was getting sick of them)
S: Blueberry Lara Bar
L: Black forest ham and BAS (broccoli, cucumber, bacon today)
S: Canteloupe
D: Leftover "spaghetti" (basically just sauce and ground extra lean turkey. maybe a very small amount of gluten free noodles... we'll see.) and green beans with butter

Thanks! Definitely, I was still getting heartburn as well! No sign of a cause, but the Kefir has stopped my heartburn and nausea. Maybe I was just in need of some good probiotics with the addition of so many new things for my body to digest. The sad part is that the Kefir (I think) is making my face breakout because of the dairy.

THE POTATO CRAVINGS! They were intense yesterday so I bought a little bag of kettle chips, ate a few, and got an instant headache. I guess that's a clear enough signal not to eat them.

I've found that just briskly walking doesn't raise my heart rate into the 55-75% level anymore - a good thing, and a bad thing. I would assume that means that I'm more physically fit, but it also meant having to lightly jog my route last night and today my knees are killing me. Probably should have eased into it instead of doing 2 hours. (But I was on a roll!)

I also tried IF for the first legitimate amount of time. I've been skipping meals occasionally since I hit the 3 week mark, but last night I ate an early dinner and tried to hold off breakfast until 9am. It could be psychological, but by 9 I was thinking "GIVE ME ANYTHING TO EAT RIGHT NOW!" So, not entirely successful, but it was my first 16-hour attempt so I'm still proud of myself for trying it.

B: IF, late breakfast was just a Lara Bar, a piece of dark chocolate and some almonds.
L: Chicken curry I made last night

Leaving to go camping after work, not really sure how the eating situation will go the rest of the day/weekend. Hoping for the best, and major willpower!

Camping up north actually went great. The best part: when I got there, I hadn't seen my in-laws in a while and they all noticed that I'd gotten "skinnier!" It was great to finally hear someone notice it. My husband hasn't said much, I think because he sees me every day, but he has been more affectionate lately

The worst part, however, was when people ask how I lost it. "Oh, have you been working out or eating better?" was the first question. Frustrating to hear, considering I've been working out so hard my whole life and "eating better" for the past 5 or 6 years. Equally frustrating tip-toeing around the Primal thing because my in-laws, much like my husband, are tried and true skeptics of EVERYTHING, and I didn't feel like getting into a debate about nutrition. I simply said "I just stopped eating a lot of things." My mother-in-law pressed further, and I tried explaining why I don't eat grains anymore but she pulled out the skeptic face and buried her head back in her book.

Either way, I'm still, somehow, losing weight. And now I'm truly not even trying.